BahshamiyyaBahshamiyya (also known as "Ba Hashimiyya"[1]) is a school of
Mu'tazili thought, rivaling the school of Abd al-Jabbar ibn Ahmad,
based primarily on the earlier teaching of Abu Hashim al-Jubba'i,[2]
the son of Abu 'Ali Muhammad al-Jubba'i.

Borne from Mu'tazila[edit]
Mu'tazilaMu'tazila was a school of rationalist
Islamic theologyIslamic theology known as Kalam.
Practitioners, Mu'tazilîs, stressed the supremacy of human reason and
free-will (similar to Qadariyya) and went on to develop an
epistemology, ontology and psychology which provide a basis for
explaining the nature of the world, God, man and religion. According
to Mu'tazilis, good and evil are easily reconciled through human
reason without esoteric methods.

1. the
BaghdadBaghdad school Ikhshîdiyya - followed modifications by Abu
Yakub Yusuf al-Shahham, who adopted the idea of "acquisition" (kasb,
iktisab), applied it only to involuntary human actions, God-being, in
their view, in no way the "cause" of free human actions; for
al-Jubbai, on the contrary, God retains Supreme Power even over the
actions which man performs freely. But, unlike the later Ashari
notion,
Al-Jubba'i refuses to apply the theory of the kasb to free
actions; and he calls man the "creator" (Khalik) of his actions, in
the sense that man acts, or his actions proceed from him, with a
determination (Qadar) which comes from God. Al-Jubbai had two pupils
who later became celebrated 1) his son Abu Hashim and 2) Abu'l-Hasan
al-
Ash'ariAsh'ari who, after breaking away, was to devote himself to refuting
Mu'tazilaMu'tazila and to become the "founder" of the so-called school of the
Ashariyya. The traditions of the ilm al-kalam take pleasure in
recounting the dialogue reputed to have brought Al-
AshariAshari and his
teacher into conflict on the subject of the fate of the "three
brothers"-one pious, one impious and one who died infans. In this
issue was posed the problem of the rational justification of the
divine Decree. Al-Jubbai was unable to reply with a coherent answer
and al-
AshariAshari left him to start his own school.

BahshamiyyaBahshamiyya ascendance[edit]
The
BasraBasra school was led by Abû 'Alî al-Jubbâ'î and his son Abû
Hâshim. Students and followers of Abû Hâshim formed a sub-school
known as the Bahshamiyya. The most noteworthy practitioners were:
1. Abû 'Alî ibn Khallâd
2. Abû 'Abd Allâh al-Basrî
3. Abû Ishâq ibn 'Ayyâsh
Abd al-Jabbâr al-Hamadhânî, a judge, was a student of Abû 'Abd
Allâh and Abû Ishâq and a very prolific author of Mu'tazili
doctrine. One of 'Abd al-Jabbâr's own students, Abû l-Husayn
al-Basrî, established the last creative school of thought among the
Mu'tazilaMu'tazila -
BahshamiyyaBahshamiyya Mu'tazila.
BahshamiyyaBahshamiyyaMu'tazilaMu'tazila and Judaism[edit]
In
JudaismJudaism (
Rabbanite and Karaite)
BahshamiyyaBahshamiyyaMu'tazilaMu'tazila was adopted
in Sura and Pumbeditha Academies of Babylon, in varying degrees, from
the 9th century onwards. Jewish Gaonim composed works which reflected
Mu'tazilaMu'tazila influence as well as translated many of the Arabic Mu'tazila
texts into Hebrew (i.e. Yûsuf al-Basîr's al-Kitâb al-Muhtawî and
Kitâb al-Tamyîz). The influence of
BahshamiyyaBahshamiyyaMu'tazilaMu'tazila quickly
became central to Jewish religious and intellectual life in the East -
slowly migrating across North Africa with the Fatmimids and making it
way to al-Andalus. Gaonim who embraced
BahshamiyyaBahshamiyyaMu'tazilaMu'tazila included
Samuel ben Hofni Gaon who was familiar with the works of Ibn Khallâd
and Abû 'Abd Allâh al-Basrî as well as Saadiah Gaon.
Mu'tazilî doctrines and terminology provided a basis for discussion
and polemical exchanges between Jewish and
Shi'aShi'a scholars. Virtually
banned from Sunnî Islam,
Mu'tazilaMu'tazila doctrine remains an integral part
of Islamic intellectual history. The rationalistic approach of
Mu'tazilaMu'tazila towards reasoned theological issues led to the
classification of Mu'tazilîs as freethinkers within
IslamIslam who had
been deeply influenced by Greek philosophical thought and thus
practiced apostasy and heresy. A similar attitude was assumed by
Tosafists and Kabbalists towards "Jewish Kalam"
Discovery in Yemen[edit]
In the 1950s a number of manuscripts were discovered in the library of
the Great Mosque in Sana'a, Yemen. These contained texts by Abû
Hâshim al-Jubbâ'î, the Bahshamiyya; they also included 14 of 20
volumes of the encyclopedic Kitâb al-Mughnî fî abwâb al-tawhîd
wa-l-'adl of Abd al-Jabbâr al-Hamadhânî. Further writings by
followers of the
BahshamiyyaBahshamiyya School that were found included Ta'lîq
sharh al-usûl al-khamsa, a recension of the Sharh usûl al-khamsa of
Abd al-Jabbâr by one of his followers, Mânakdîm, as well as
al-Kitâb al-Majmû' fî l-muhît bi-l-taklîf, a recension of Abd
al-Jabbâr's al-Kitâb al-Muhît bi-l-taklîf by Ibn Mattawayh.
However, no texts prior to Abd al-Jabbâr were discovered; the same
applies to rival groups to the
BahshamiyyaBahshamiyya such as the Ikhshîdiyya,
or the school of Baghdad, whose doctrines were to a large extent
formulated by Abû l-Qâsim al-Ka'bî al-Balkhî.
In the Yemen discovery, the
BahshamiyyaBahshamiyya School was erroneously
believed to have constituted the last innovative and dynamic school
within Mu'tazilism; Wilferd Madelung and Martin MacDermott discovered
fragments of Rukn al-Din Mahmud ibn Muhammad al-Malâhimî's Kitâb
al-Mu'tamad fî usûl al-dîn. Ibn al-Malâhimî was a follower of
Abû'l-Husayn al-Basrî. Examination of Kitâb al-Mu'tamad proves that
Abû'l-Husayn al-Basrî's views differed from those of his teacher
Qadi Abd al-Jabbar. Ibn al-Malâhimî's Kitâb al-Mu'tamad was
published in 1991; Kitâb al-Fâ'iq fî usûl al-
DīnDīn was recently
published.
Opponents of
BahshamiyyaBahshamiyya Mu'tazila[edit]
Dhammiyya[edit]
The
Dhammiyya ShiaDhammiyya Shia was a
GhulatGhulat sect of Shia Islam. The name Dhammiyya
was derived from the Arabic word dhamm (to blame). Therefore, the
Arabic name Dhammiyya is translated as The Blamers. The "Blamers" was
used for
Dhammiyya ShiaDhammiyya Shia because they believed that:
1. Ali was God, and,
2. Muhammad was his Messenger and Prophet, and,
3. Muhammad was to be blamed because he was sent by Ali to call the
people to Ali, but called them to himself instead.
Dhammiyya ShiaDhammiyya Shia was one of the sects that was considered derived from
the Saba'iyya followers of Abdullah Ibn Saba. The sect was also known
as the Ulyaniyya or Alya'iyya, named after Ulyan or Alya ibn Dhira
al-Asdi, and appear to have been active around 800 CE.
Ikhshîdiyya[edit]
Baghdadi Mu'tazili who fled
SunniSunni Arabia to Egypt for safety under
umbra of
Shi'aShi'a Fatimid protection.
Kafuriyya[edit]
Indigenous North African Fatimids who were good enough to be recruited
and die as soldiers yet excluded from Arab culture and society due to
their skin-color.
Ka'biyya[edit]
Ka'biyya trace their name and origin to Abu'l-Qasim al-Ka'bi, a native
of Baghdad. He refused to accept that Allah is all-hearing,
all-seeing, and denied that Allah imposes his will upon man. According
to his teaching, the will of Allah, in relation to the action of His
servants, is the commandment to perform the act; therefore Allah's
will in relation to Allah's own action is Allah's knowledge and the
absence of constraint.
Abu'l-Qasim al-Ka'bi also maintained that the entire universe is a
composite whole; that anything that moves is no more than the first
layer of the physical bodies; that the human being, even if he were
greased with oil and seemed to gliding on a sheet of oil, would not be
what was actually in motion, since it would only be the oil that was
moving.
He used to profess the doctrine that the Qur'an is muhdath [produced,
originated—and therefore not existing from all eternity], but he did
not refer to it as makhluq [created] - that would be apostasy and
heresy.
See also[edit]

A systematic comparison of the doctrines of the Bahshamiyyites (and
Abu l-Husayn), was written between 1141 CE and 1276 CE by Taqî
al-Dîn al-Bahrânî. This text illustrates the influence of Abû
l-Husayn had on theological reasoning of Imâmî Shî'a from the 12th
century forward. The study of Jewish Mu'tazilism (Jewish Kalam) began
within the last 150 years with the works of Schreiner and Munk.
Schreiner and Munk, however, were not aware of the primary sources to
be found among the various Genizah materials. Recent studies of Jewish
Mu'tazilism were written by Harry Austryn Wolfson in Repercussions of
the
KalamKalam in Jewish Philosophy, and
Georges Vajda writings regarding
Yûsuf al-Basîr. Sarah Stroumsa published the 'Ishrûn Maqâla of the
9th century Jewish mutakallim David Ibn Marwan al-Mukammas . Abd
al-Jabbar harmonized some of the Mu'tazili views with
SunniSunni doctrine
on the relation of reason and revelation, and came close to the
Shi'ite position on the question of leadership (imama). He is also a
significant source of information on ancient Iranian and other
monotheistic religions.[3] The
BahshamiyyaBahshamiyya school of thought held that
the likeness of essential attributes entailed likeness of the essences
themselves.[4]
References[edit]